486 Tears of Steel III
“Calm down, the both of you.” Cain stopped them. “Nothing is happening tonight, for now, rest well,” Cain said glaring at them.
Hati rushed at him with a disappointed face, “But…but!”
“Another time, if I were to go around the five of you it will take me the whole night. I have a feeling we won’t fight Mary, but just in case something go wrong, please refrain until we’re in a safe place.”
“I also want to use this time to prepare some spells, the best I know just in case.” Cain smiled.
“Spells? What kind?” Farryn seemed interested.
“Three total. The first is a simple call.”
“Call who?”
“Sylph, I will slowly and carefully extend my magic to the world tree on this layer. That will allow me to send an instantaneous summon or message to her.” Cain explained. Sylph could move from one world tree to the other easily. Sadly in the outer world, there is only one world tree in the elvish kingdom.
“Master Sylph? Bring her now if you can, with her help we can end everything.” Farryn looked excited.
“I don’t want her to harm Mary, nor do I want to disturb the elvish kingdom too much.”
“The dragons will take the opportunity to attack if we lost one of the four pillars even for a moment.” Farryn completely understood his reasoning.
“Then the second spell is a contingency with [Astral projection] it will activate if I died and allow my soul to live a while longer. With that, I could raise as undead or have someone heal my body and jump back in.”
“Contingency spell doesn’t work with spells higher than fifth-tier…” Farryn stated sitting face to face with Cain, she remembered the mages talk about that in the elvish capital.
“If you used the sixth-tier Contingency, that’s the case. I will buff it to the ninth-tier to allow up to the eighth tier, and then debuff [Astral projection] to make it an eight-tier by decreasing the length of the silver cord and…”
“Please stop, you’re starting to sound like Lilia, and am losing track of what you were saying. If you can, you can, what is your last spell?”
“This is for when all is lost,” Cain said with an ominous smile.
“Don’t tell us it’s the Meteors?” Zaleria stared at him, she was an expert at witchcraft and followed him to that point. But to her knowledge, [Meteor fall] was the most destructive spell.
“Remember Lilia, the laughing tornado?” Cain said.
“Why are you bringing her name?” Farryn looked terrified for a moment.
“She always laughs, smiles, and plays with the children with care. And on the battlefield, she is a smiling beacon of destruction that’s feared even by the dragons.” Cain started,
“But, she’s never serious. She never felt threatened, never felt the need to go all out, that’s why she doesn’t care about Mystra’s rule over magic. Yet, there is one thing that will cause her to get serious, to the point where the laughing tornado, became a silent death.”
“Don’t. Try. And. Enrage her.” Farryn was serious. Lilia is dangerous as it is.
“The only thing to anger her is another one of herself. If she felt a slither of magic similar to her own, she will search, find, and destroy the potential threat immediately. So…” Cain posed.
“If we got stuck in an unwinnable situation, I will tune my magic to her.”
“Stop right there, don’t. That’s a stupid idea and will just get us killed. I remember that one time someone in the courtroom called her a shorty, and she skinned him on the spot with no warning.”
Farryn had a point, he could call Lilia, but she was a gamble. One that is worth it when they have nothing to lose.
“Go to sleep, I will work on my spells.” Cain went to the couch and laid closing his eyes.
…
The next day quickly came by. Cain and the girls exited the mansion and flew upward to exit the ravine. They needed to get to the Hell Gate to get out.
Cain only wanted to drop Jella off with her mother and then get back here to deal with the resistance and the newcomer woman. Spindle kept doing his guarding job silently and awaiting his union with Malta.
As they approached the gate, Mary approached Cain with a smile. “How was the last night?” She asked with a smug smile.
“Refreshing, probably try something with you tonight.” He replied with a smile.
“It will be my pleasure, we haven’t done it …!” BANG! Mary disappeared from his eyesight and BAM! A shockwave followed in a rumbling blast.
VAM! Morena landed a few feet away with an eccentric smile on her face and an adamantine staff in her hand. The staff was shaped like two intertwined serpents with the name Dispater written on it.
“Haha! This is really the real deal. You’re rusting bitch!” Morena laughed ignoring everyone but Mary.
As her body was embedded into a boulder, Mary crawled out with half of her face corroding into rust.
“Mary! Cain screamed and was about to active time slow, “Gray!” Morena said and the white-haired devil grabbed Cain by the head.
[Acid Burst] Cain got blown away, [Sylph’s tiny hut] barely protected him from the acid.
“I’m your opponent!” Gray said.
As all the girls were about to get to the action, Cain snapped.
CRACKLE! With a flash of lightning, a massive tentacle grabbed Gray, and another grabbed Morena. The abominable chimera stared at them with madness seeping from him.
“Who are you, Devil?” Cain growled as an eldritch monster should, causing even the girls to feel terrified staring at his massive underside floating above them.
Soon, the Abishai swarmed Cain under Gray’s command and the girls rushed to fight them off.
Cain couldn’t apprise both of them, the staff was protecting Morena while the devil had no stat at all, as if he wasn’t a living being.
BAM! Morena tore Cain’s tentacle with a single swing from the staff and flew toward Mary who has stood up.
“Time to settle our score from the last time. Gray was right, waiting for a day was worth it.” Morena swung her staff at Marry.
“I don’t want to go through another…” BAM! Mary said blocking the staff with her bare hand.
“I was about to be happy for a single night, now you make me wait another twenty years. I already waited over forty years!” As Mary cried, she punched Morena away.
“How could she block it, this belongs to the lord of the second layer!” Morena growled as she transformed into her draconic form, the staff merged into her claws.
“Fine, I don’t care, this one failed as well.” Mary seemed to calm down, looking sad, “Let’s kill you first shall we?”
As Mary said that, her body started to swell. A monster far bigger than Morena or Zaleria could hope to be, only surpassed by Cain in size.
A dragon with a gargantuan build, and massive head. Sword-like frills grow from its elbows and digits. Its wings consist of overlapping blades that look like feathers. And the scales of the dragon’s chest resemble shields. Hundreds of magical runes are carved into each of its scales.
“Yet…” Mary growled, “Why is this one not resetting?” Wondering why the magic wasn’t activating.
“A steel dragon, that’s why I couldn’t…” Cain stared at her.
Mary looked at him, “I will explain later like I always did.” She said.